An attendee of one of our Brand You Workshops, Steve Wood, shared his wife Cullen’s project with us. It’s called Cullen’s abc’s. She’s a preschool teacher in California and in her spare time she records what she calls “idea videos” on YouTube. Cullen gives simple information of interest to preschoolers in a clear and friendly way. It’s a great use of current technology to share her passion for teaching with the world. What we find fascinating is that, according to Steve, a Chinese news agency has published an article about the videos.

What kind of inspiration does this spark for you? Does it make you want to create your own “idea videos” for something you’re passionate about? Does it make you want to find the same type of videos done by preschool teachers in, say, Russia for your children to watch? Let us know.

Sometimes a thousand well chosen words can change your view of something important. So it was for me with a brief piece in yesterday’s New York Times, “Why Is Income Inequality in America So Pronounced? Consider Education,” by Tyler Cowan. To make a short story even shorter, Cowan cites several serious academic studies that conclude we’ve given far too much weight to outsourcing and the riches of the top 1% as cause of rising wage and wealth inequality. The true culprit, to an overwhelming degree, is the growing chasm between the prospects of those who have (or don’t have) a college degree. It’s almost that simple, and I urge you to read the article.

(NB: The author admits his answer is not for the ages. The growing potency of technology means that even the college sheepskin holders will be under attack fairly soon. But for now that sheepskin matters … a lot.)

Speaking of world trade and competitiveness, and if you are not depressed enough by the news and images from Baghdad, try the December 2006 issue of Bloomberg Markets. (I command you to do so. Whoops, I am powerless.) The cover story, a variant on the life of a T-shirt is: “The Secret World of Modern Slavery: Steel used to build cars and appliances in the U.S. starts with forced labor in Brazil.” The piece will turn your stomach—and, remember, Bloomberg Markets is not exactly home to left wing extremism.

When you get back from gagging in the bathroom, or if you survive shooting yourself, dive into a Bloomberg companion piece, “How Test Companies Fail Your Kids: The $2.8 billion industry hires $10-an-hour graders for exams that control U.S. schools.” I’m far too old to lightly use a word like “unbelievable.” But this stuff is … unbelievable. Try “layed off” janitors who majored in “Phylosophy/Humanity” grading essays that determine our kids’ life success and our teachers’ employment prospects. This article would be hilarious were it not of such surpassing importance. Again, I underscore that this comes from Bloomberg, not the PR arm of our national teachers union.

This week’s U.S. News & World Report, in its cover story, observes that in the last 5 years (a more or less “recovery”), entry level wages for college grads have gone down! Women: 3.5%. Men: 7.3%.

That’s a big deal given that “intellectual capital” intensity is supposed to keep us afloat for the next few years/decades/”forever.”

Great snippet in this week’s Newsweek. “Keep On Truckin'” describes In-Cab University, “the first accredited college catering to the trucking community. Drivers, whose classes start this week, listen to lectures while on the road and submit assignments at rest stops and loading docks using cell phones and Wi-Fi.” One driver-student, Stephen Fraser, 38 and a business major, says: “Rather than driving all day and dreaming about lottery winnings, I’m actually using my mind.” Several fleets are covering the $225 per credit hour cost. Courses are offered in science, business, the humanities, and personal growth (the latter addressing such relevant issues as long-distance relationships).

Talk about a positive spin for the tech revolution! Congrats to the creators of In-Cab University, the “freshman” drivers—and the companies that are ponying up.

A lot of our test frenzy has been fueled by test scores from Asia. To begin with, the deal has always been phony. Almost all Americans take the test—and most go to some sort of college. In Asia typically only the elite take the test. Hence our average is bound to be lower; our top kids test the same as theirs.

And if that was not enough, the cost to Asian kids is enormous. E.g., a 7(!)-year-old in Hong Kong committing suicide over test scores. A Japanese mother strangling to death a neighbor’s 2-year-old who beat out her daughter for a pre-school slot. Moreover, research shows that given the nutty nature of the Asians’ prep for the tests, the post-test retention of stuff is about zilch (lowest in the world). Thai teacher: “Students can’t really read or write. All they know how to do is tick a box next to a multiple-choice question.”

Perhaps the above explains at least a little of the answer to the question of why we keep producing entrepreneurs and Nobel Prize winners; we don’t manage to suppress quite as much natural creativity-curiosity as our Asian friends—though our All Kids Left Behind act is trying to fix that.

(Source for a lot of this is a fascinating new book, The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, by Alexandra Robbins.)

I was rushing and got my dates confused in “Book of the Century.” It’s fixed now—and thanks for letting me know. (I am shamefaced!)

Catching up on my newspaper reading, I came across this contentious nugget from the Business Section of the Boston Sunday Globe on July 9:

“Today’s business schools have strayed from that original mission of stewardship, according to [Harvard Business School’s] Rakesh Khurana … While trumpeting their production of leaders, they have failed to define leadership in the context of the public good and enshrined as their highest ideal the maximizing of shareholder value, he contended … Misdeeds at companies like Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco can be traced in part to a ‘de-professionalization’ of managers who put the pursuit of profits over their commitment to the broader society.”

And the expected response from U of Chicago’s Steven Kaplan: “He’s confused. It’s hard to understand why he’s saying there’s a problem or a failure. By and large, the goal of maximizing shareholder value does the right thing for companies. And in the long run, it’s good for the economies in which companies operate.”

Is Khurana confused? Is there no problem? And is the commitment of business leadership to the public good less important than shareholder rights?

It’s an unassailable truth that brains and brawn do not mix. You hardly hear a peep about sports prowess coming from MIT, Cal Tech, or Chicago. Harvard et al. take their sports very seriously, but rarely at the Division I championship level. That’s why I love it that Stanford won its … 12th straight … Division I Director’s Cup. (Okay, I went there to B.School.) Hence the myth of brains or brawn suffers a fatal blow—as I see it. Some say the secret is Stanford’s prowess in “minor” sports: swimming, baseball, tennis, etc. “Minor”? You must be kidding. I’ll surely agree that our Rose Bowl trips have been few and far between of late. (Two in a row while I was getting my MBA, thanks in part to Heisman winner Jim Plunkett.) Basketball is a powerhouse—a string of Pac Ten championships, and a Final Four appearance a couple of years ago. There’s more, my real turn-on: Stanford’s women’s programs. Wow! Great facilities! Great coaches! Great records!

Brains & brawn. A non-starter? Think again. (FYI: Hats off to Williams for its 8th straight Div III Director’s Cup victory.)

Jim McGee, writing in the Future Tense blog over at Corante, put up a post back in February titled “A reading list for aspiring knowledge workers.” It seems like quite an interesting list. Just so happens that one of our fairly recent Cool Friends, Patricia Ryan Madson, is on the list for her book Improv Wisdom. Must be a good list.